We have questions as to how many eggs we should be putting in the Governor’s health care plan. It’s not so much a matter of the bill’s passage or not. It is more a question of how much this legislation does to advance the cause of universal/single payer access to health care.
First, we agree that reforms are a good thing. We don’t have to win everything all at once. But we must keep our eye on the prize and our organizing around health care must revolve around that.
What is the prize, the vision that we have for healthcare? Everyone is covered regardless of income, job status, age, or health status. You can go to any doctor you want without worrying about co-payments, deductibles or premiums. All healthcare services are covered, including hospital stays, doctor visits, prescription drugs, long-term care and mental health care.
A problem with the current campaign for the Governor’s plan is it draws a line of demarcation between itself and universal health care. By the Governor’s own admission, his plan will only help one third of the state’s 1.8 million uninsured residents get coverage. Worse is that supporters of the Governor’s bill are putting this forward as a positive thing. Several of the chants at the recent demonstration before the Chamber of Commerce clearly stated that we weren’t in favor of “free loafers” being covered and stressed how “our” plan encouraged “responsibility”. This line of delineation was also very noticeable a couple of months ago when the Coalition for better health care threw its multi-media presentation at a special large meeting. The presentation put forward as a positive that it would only cover the deserving.
Other indications of the weaknesses of the Governor’s bill include that it utilized subsidies to the insurance industry. This will lead to serious problems over who will the insurance companies agree to cover. Money that would be better spent in insuring health care for all will instead go to subsidizing insurance company profits. The only way to cheapen the cost of these private plans would be to strip down coverage with higher deductibles, bigger co-pays, and the exclusion of important services. The Governor’s plan does nothing for the millions of Illinoisans who already are saddled with inadequate insurance plans. Instead it expands these defective plans to more people.
There is a bill H. B. 311 in the Illinois Legislature, sponsored by Mary Flowers of Chicago and Mike Boland from Moline that supports Universal Healthcare.
I’m not sure if we know the answer to the questions we started off with. We do know we should dialogue on this though. We are anxious to hear your thoughts.
Please send this to others involved in the struggle for healthcare. Let’s include as many as we can in this important discussion.
Much of this information came from http://www.healthcareforallillinois.org/
This is the web site of the people who were dissatisfied with Campaign for Better Health Care’s support for the Governor’s bill.
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